Jimmy Page tells ‘Stairway To Heaven’ trial he hadn’t heard Spirit track ‘until a few years ago’

Jimmy Page has told a Los Angeles court hearing the ‘Stairway To Heaven‘ plagiarism trial that he had never heard the track he is alleged to have stolen the iconic guitar riff from until a few years ago.

The guitarist is reported to have said: “Something like that would stick in my mind. It was totally alien to me”, whilst also acknowledging he does own three Spirit albums and once used another of the band’s riffs during a medley played by Led Zeppelin on their first tour of Scandinavia.

It is Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the late Randy Wolfe, who has brought the case against Led Zeppelin over an instrumental written by Wolfe in 1967 when he was part of Spirit, claiming its opening chords were stolen for ‘Stairway To Heaven’.

At the start of the trial earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner said he expects proceedings to last ‘four or five days’.